Welcome to winter—we hope you are warm

Inside or outside—with a slowly growing lawn

Now the season is changing—some plants wont survive

Time will tell—which ones will thrive

Every edition we are thankful for the volunteer energy and our di-

verse mix

Read a little news below, or flick through the pics. …..

Indigenous Smoking Ceremony and 10-year celebration re-cap

‘Stocky’take and Mosaic Madness

Workshops and what to plant when

Poet’s Corner—seasonal specials

Quarry quagmire

“My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt away

like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.”

― George R.R. Martin, A Feast for Crows

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.

Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.

Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.

Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”

― Yoko Ono

Wonderful Winter EDITION June 2016

‘Let’s Get Growing’ Warrnambool Community Garden Inc.

Post: PO Box 5181 Warrnambool VIC 3280

Email: community@yahoo.com.au Website: www.warrnamboolcg.wordpress.com

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/pages/Warrnambool-Community-

Garden/360924007270788

Below: The Pizza Oven ‘Mosaicers’ (is that a word?) hard

at work.

WCG acknowledges and respects the original custodi-

ans of this rich and fertile land the Gunditjmara people

and the traditions and knowledge of their elders both

past and present.

Above: Kylie Treble and gardeners at a recent workshop.

Above: Our beautiful Indigenous Acknowledgement Seat

Above: Jennie Miller with the amazing cake she made for the 10 –year celebration.

10-Year Celebration, Indigenous Ceremony and Acknowledgment Seat

It’s perhaps easier to sum the day up in pictures than via words as it was a very poignant, momentous and special day at our Garden. Rob Lowe Snr’s words moved everybody in attendance as he spoke of his experi-ences and his people’s history in our area. For many, it was the first time we had heard that such disturbing events happened so close to our garden—a place we now find such peace and enjoyment in. The smoking bowl was lit, eucalyptus wafted and people reflected quietly. The handing over of a garden key to Rob was

more than a symbolic gesture, as he now is able to bring groups of people to the garden and share the stories of true events so we can foster more understanding and forge a way towards a future where we acknowledge

and remember the people who lived and died here. Thank you Rob for your willingness to share your story and be involved in our garden community.

To mark 10 years since the first community meeting about the garden, we heard an interview that was played on the radio 10 years ago with Dave Mitchell. We also

heard form Geoff Rollinson and Julie Eagles—three people who have helped create the space we all share in today. The seat (as seen below) designed by Elli Rollinson is

a wonderful creation and place for quiet reflection or a chat.

We enjoyed delicious pizzas and cake and even a bit of champagne! The contribution of all those from the communal garden who worked so hard to feed us so well should really be acknowledged! It really was a gen-erous gift as they grew some of the toppings and financed the purchase of other ingredients though the funds they raised from communal lunches and selling produce and relishes. Thank you all for feeding us on this day and many others. We really appreciate it. Also a big thanks to musicians Lee Morgan, Bruce Campbell and Da-

mien for setting a beautiful atmosphere. Written by: Tina Reilly

This Edition’s Very Proud Plot The Flowering Gum Pizza Oven Mosaic!

The beautiful design taking shape.

Above: Mosaicers Fiona and Maggie

‘Stocky’take (He’s not for sale!)

David Stockdale is our Tuesday/Wednesday work experience

crew supervisor. AKA as Stocky - he is to be seen at the garden

also on most Thursdays and Fridays helping out with the work

on those days AS A VOLUNTEER. And then he’s also at the gar-

den for working bees or whenever there is something to be

done. Stocky you are an absolute gem - THANK YOU for all you

do!

A now a word from the man himself…..

So every Wednesday the work for the dole group have been tak-ing turns cooking. The main ingredients have to come from our little veggie patch at the garden. We have had roast chicken and salad, duck and roast veggies and lots of different pasta and veg-gies. We all have been getting more confident with cooking and it gives us a good chance to talk about what jobs and fun things there are to do in Warrnambool. Our little veggie patch is going well because it was well mulched in the beginning and we still have tomatoes growing this time of year! Below are some photos of the wicking bed that we con-structed—where the bed is watered from the bottom as well as a shot from before the pizza oven area was transformed. See you round at the garden!

Written by Dave Stockdale

The flowering gum mosaic is progressing well with a wonderful group of first time mosaicers, all but two would you believe! It is looking even more beautiful than imagined and the weather has been cold, but kind to us. We are looking forward to com-pleting the tiling in the next few weeks and then grouting the pizza oven. The next stage will be a natural looking coloured pebble mosaic to the base walls to give the appearance that it is grounded to the earth. If you are still interested in being in-volved, or to learn how to mosaic, it is not too late. We meet weekly on Tuesdays and Saturdays (weather permitting) and would love you to stop by.

Di Pettigrew & Fiona Golding

My Autumn Death

I died: and dried my fruit fell low

unclaimed rotting on the stones

flesh gone in wind and rain and snow

leaving the centre, my seed, my bones

swooping my graceful wing-borne friend

(shade I gave her while I lived!)

snapping the kernel near its end

down inside her, strength to give

fertile it falls, that tiny lump

richly tarred returns outside

down it lands, down it bumps

into the soft damp soil it hides

hides and grows, sprouts and grows

lifting its tiny lid in the rain

out of the soil- my autumn death!

My autumn death was not in vain.

- Christian Schultink

Take me out

To be in my first winter

Amongst the winds

Like I hear they used to

Hold me close

And let me be free

To feel it rush past my ears and coat

Like you say they used to

Now let me wander

In the first frost

Innocent delight at the crunch, I see clearly through mist

Just like you used to

Tina Reilly

Poet’s Corner

BUSHFOOD GARDEN PROGRESS UPDATE Stage one of our bushfood garden and the works around the HUB and pizza oven area is progressing beautifully. It’s great to see the changes happening to what was a pretty unloved and ugly part our community garden. The change to the gradient and route of the pathways and steps has already made this area more comfortably accessible. There is more work to be done on the paths and the final topping will be granitic sand that will give us a finer, lower maintenance surface. We now have a list of suggested plants for the bushfood gar-den. Australian Plant Society have donated 12 muntries and 12 native raspberries and other plants will be either sourced from local nurseries or propagated by our work crew. Planting will start in Spring. The garden will be native and indigenous bushfood plants that you can grow in your backyard given the right conditions. It is planned to be productive, beau-tiful, low maintenance and educational. Stage 2 will continue the bush-food garden in front of the HUB and along at ground level near the water tank. Stage 2 will also include windows from the HUB looking to the new-ly landscaped areas, a large mosaic on the HUB wall and cover over the ramp walkway and HUB verandah. Planting of shelter shrubs such as pin cushion hakeas (also a bushfood!) are planned. The whole area is already becoming a much more useable part of our garden for events, gatherings and socialising together. We are currently thinking about interpretive signs and the whole area will be launched at an open day event on the last Saturday of November - the 26th. So put the date in your diary and if you’d like to be involved in helping plan for the day, please let me know. The team working on this area along with our work experience crews are doing an amazing job and the pizza oven mosaic compliments beautifully. Thank you to Kevin Spar-row, Fiona Golding, Peter Austin, David Stockdale (Stocky), Dave Mitchell, Geoff Rollinson, Di Pettigrew, and the Thursday/Friday work experience crew in particular.

Julie Eagles

First Winter

Above: Before Below: During… we will all look forward to seeing it change

and grow as more hard work is done to the area.

NATURE’S WAY HAVE THEIR SAY

We are taking a break from workshops

over the winter (June 5 to July 25) but

there will still be plenty happening at The

Sanctuary and we can still be contacted

during this time. Work is progressing on

our Website and July e-newsletter, and the grounds are being metic-

ulously maintained.

As always, works are ongoing and Arthur and Ian recently completed

this fabulous wet stone wall feature at the entrance.

Our Straw Bale Building workshops have seen major progress on the

Garden Shed and the Curved Garden Wall. The Dry Stone Wall is well

under way with some sections almost complete thanks to the work-

shops.

The Bees have blessed us with several collections of pure honey ex-

tracted at some of the Backyard Bee Keeping workshops.

The Orchard and Raised Vegetable Beds have supplied a great deal

of fresh, organic produce and the alpacas are happily growing their

wool as well as supplying manure for the compost.

Second Semester Workshops are being

finalised. We have an exciting new series

called “From the Ground Up”. These ses-

sions, conducted monthly on a Tuesday

and a Saturday, will show how you can

start your vegetable garden from scratch,

through to planting and harvesting.

Fiona Golding will conduct talks on Biomimicry – Designing for Cli-

mate and Designing Your Green Home. Dry Stone Walling and Natu-

ral Backyard Bee Keeping will continue. There is a new series of

workshops sharing simple everyday lifestyle changes that can be

made to live more sustainably (even if you’re renting or on a low in-

come or both!) Our new focus is on learning or regaining some of

those “lost” homemaking skills and getting back to basics.

There are also many Personal Development, Spiritual Growth and

Wellbeing workshops eg Aromatherapy, Creating Mandala, Earth

Connection, Heal Your Life, The Colour in Your Life, Yoga and others.

We look forward to introducing the new members of our team and

reacquainting you with those from first semester.

Yours in Sustainability,

Pauline and Tina

66 McSween’s Rd, Rosebrook Vic 3285

Email: natureswaysanctuary@gmail.com

FB: Nature’s Way Eco Sanctuary

Tina 03 5568 1240

Pauline 0407 567 399

Upcoming Workshop with

KYLIE TREBLE

July Workshop - Making the most of your space, time and climate!

Titled more like an outer space training run, our July workshop will begin by

realising and maximising those subtleties of micro-climates for growing food

plants. You know the places - that space beside your outdoor boot box, that

window sill in the garage, those places where skinks lurk between the garden

rocks. We will then consider how those spaces can be modified to suit the

edible plants that you wish to grow and really push the barriers by examining

the growing of some subtropical edibles. And lastly we will look at how you

can do all this with only a few moments of spare time (maybe in that five

minutes before the school bus arrives) and the se-

cret.....well you will just have to come along to find

out!

Bring your questions and your notepads to

the Community Garden on July 2nd at 10am

and we will explore all this and more.

There has been a very strange occurrence at our community gar-

den. Someone who must love cushion bush plants has taken all

20 that Dave Stockdale and our work crew propagated. They

were growing in little pots between the little lawnmower shed

and the hothouse. But not only did someone take all these baby

plants, they also dug up the two mature cushion bush plants

outside the fence - the parents of the cushion bush ba-

bies! Someone has obviously not understood the honesty system

that works so well at our garden.

.

Left and above: Kylie in action at a recent

workshop about food storage. Rumour has it that some beautiful vegie pickle was cre-

ated.

CUSHION BUSH CONFUSION

The Quarry Reference Group has begun digging for gold amongst all the ideas that were submitted by Garden members and the general public. Geoff Rollinson, Keith Fisher, Dave Mitchell, Chris Worrall and Bruce Campbell are currently sifting and sorting through the ideas. The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Warrnambool City Council and Wannon Water will need to be consulted about some of the ideas before recommendations can be made to the Garden Committee.

It is clear to the Quarry Reference Group that there are no individual winning ideas. There have been many very good submissions and it is likely that good ideas will be taken from many of them and put together to form 3 or so concepts for the Committee to con-sider.

Some ideas that came up in several or many submissions are:

Performance / Gathering space

Amphitheatre

Link to Japanese Garden

Wetland / Water Garden

Native Plants and Wildlife

Indigenous elements

Art / Sculpture

A Peaceful, Meditative Space

Enjoyable Space for Children

One 'big ticket' idea is cover the quarry with a geodesic dome and create a sustainability education activity park for locals and tourists, like the Eden Project in England! (Anyone got a spare ten million dollars?)

The Reference Group will present the Committee with several options that are likely to range from easier and cheaper to more difficult and more expensive.

Thankyou to everyone who contributed ideas!

Written by Bruce Campbell.

Right: A photo from last year when the quarry was actually a natural wetland!

(Thanks Stocky for the photos)

DIGGING FOR GOOD QUARRY IDEAS

WONDERING WHAT TO PLANT in The South-West this Winter??

June: Broad beans, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, garlic, kale, lettuce, Mustard greens

(also gai choy), onions, peas, radishes, snow peas, shallots, spinach, Strawberries (from seeds) Start under-

cover in seed trays and plant out in 4-6 weeks, turnips.

July: Broad beans, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, garlic, lettuce, onions, peas, radishes, shallots, spinach, turnips.

August: Broad beans, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, garlic, lettuce, onions, peas, potatoes, radishes, shallots, silverbeet, spinach, swedes, turnips.

Source: http://members.dodo.net.au/kbears/

Left: It’s not only the vegielante who

has been using the blackboard to

spread the word!

Thanks for reading,

We hope you have a lovely winter!

Have you Heard about our Herbs? Can you help?

The beds between the HUB and the chook shed are being transformed into a herb garden by Clare V,

Stocky, Heather, Tina, Diane L, Charmari and Chris.

If you have any herbs growing at home that are interesting / productive / good for making tea or are

‘medicinal’ herbs and you think our garden should be growing them...

please let one of the team know OR you could propagate it and leave it

(labelled) in the hot house. The team have begun work on the beds and

will begin planting over the coming months.

Thanks for your help!

Thanks for reading and

contributing everyone—we

hope you have a happy,

healthy and rewarding

Winter season.

Tina and Claire

May your Broad

Beans be broad and

your peas sweet!